Episcopal Diocese of Virginia
Encyclopedia
The Diocese of Virginia is a diocese
of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America encompassing 38 counties in the northern and central parts of the state of Virginia
. The diocese was organized in 1785 and is one of the Episcopal Church's nine original dioceses. However, the diocese has origins in colonial Virginia. In 2009, the diocese had 79,852 members in 181 congregations and is thus the Episcopal Church's largest domestic diocese (the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti
is larger).
The see
city is Richmond
where Mayo Memorial Church House, the diocesan offices, is located. The diocese does not have a conventional cathedral
church but rather an open-air cathedral, the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration (Shrine Mont), which was consecrated in 1925. Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, Virginia
is also the site of a diocesan retreat and camp center. The diocese also operates the Virginia Diocesan Center at Roslyn in western Richmond, a conference center overlooking the James River. Virginia Theological Seminary
, the largest accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States, is located within the diocese in Alexandria, Virginia
.
came to Virginia in 1607 with the settlers who founded Jamestown
. The charter of the London Company
instructed them to adhere to the practices of the Church of England
, and between 1607 and its dissolution in 1624, the company sent 22 ministers to the colony. These ministers were not only concerned for the spiritual lives of the colonists but also attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to convert the Native Americans
. When Virginia's General Assembly
first met in 1619, it passed a series of laws concerning the church, including formally designating the Church of England as the established church of the colony. To keep pace with the colony's growth, the Burgesses
ordered each settlement to set aside a house or room as a place to hold regular worship services.
After Virginia was made a royal colony in 1624, it would face an acute and serious clergy shortage until the end of the 17th century. The shortage was fueled by an expanding population and insufficient clergy recruitment despite efforts to attract ministers by offering incentives, such as tax breaks. This forced parishes to rely on lay reader
s to lead prayers and read published sermons. The absence of North American bishop
s necessitated that colonists desiring ordination
make the dangerous trip to and from England. It also meant children could not be confirmed, which meant (prior to 1662) that they could not receive communion
, although many clergymen overlooked this requirement.
In this vacuum, the legislature assumed some episcopal functions, such as outlining the responsibilities of clergymen and providing for their financial maintenance. It created a vestry
system in 1642-1643 that was lay
dominated, a radical departure from the English system where rectors were nominated by parish patrons and usually held office for life. In Virginia, vestries, usually consisting of 12 wealthy men, could appoint and remove ministers. Colonial parishes were units of local government and social welfare agencies. In addition to paying the minister's salary and building churches, the parish levy provided the vestry with funding for poor relief
. Vestries were in charge of road maintenance, presented moral offenders to the county courts, and determined the legal bounds of an individual's land.
It was not until Henry Compton was appointed Bishop of London
that the hierarchy of the English Church would address the problems in America. Compton not only worked to improve the quality of the colony's ministers but appointed commissaries to act on his behalf. Commissaries could "summon the clergy, conduct visitations, administer oaths customary in ecclesiastical courts, and administer discipline or judicial proceedings to wayward clergy either by admonition, suspension, or excommunication" but could not ordain to the priesthood. The first commissary
, Henry Clayton, arrived in 1684 but left two years later. His successor, James Blair, held the office for 54 years, from 1689 to his death in 1743. Blair was successful in establishing parishes in every county. He was also committed to educating colonial men for the ministry, establishing the College of William and Mary
in 1693. Compton's attention brought stability to Virginia's church and by 1703 nearly 80 percent of Virginia's 50 parishes had ministers.
Until the Great Awakening
of the 1740s, the Church of England faced few challenges besides small groups of Quakers. During the Awakening, however, Presbyterians and Baptists emerged as a threat to the religious establishment. Baptists especially resented the privileged status of the Anglican Church and laws requiring dissenting
ministers to be licensed with the government. The Great Awakening also inspired an evangelical
movement within the established church, much of which would eventually be absorbed by Methodism
. By the 1750s and 1760s, however, the Church of England in Virginia was stable and prosperous.
, who paid little attention. Each county court gave tax money to the local vestry, composed of prominent layman. The vestry provided the priest a glebe
of 200 or 300 acres (1.2 km²), a house, and perhaps some livestock. The vestry paid him an annual salary of 16000 lb (7,257.5 kg). of tobacco, plus 20 shillings for every wedding and funeral. While not poor, the priests lived modestly and their opportunities for improvement were slim.
Ministers reported that the colonists were typically inattentive, disinterested, and bored during church services, according to the ministers, who complained that the people were sleeping, whispering, ogling the fashionably dressed women, walking about and coming and going, or at best looking out the windows or staring blankly into space. The lack of towns means the church had to serve scattered settlements, while the acute shortage of trained ministers meant that piety was hard to practice outside the home. Some ministers solved their problems by encouraged parishioners to become devout at home, using the Book of Common Prayer for private prayer and devotion (rather than the Bible). This allowed devout Anglicans to lead an active and sincere religious life apart from the unsatisfactory formal church services. However the stress on private devotion weakened the need for a bishop or a large institutional church of the sort Blair wanted. The stress on personal piety opened the way for the First Great Awakening
, which pulled people away from the established church.
was a difficult time for the Anglican Church in America. Clergymen were divided between allegiance to their king
and their state
. As public officials, ministers were required to swear loyalty to the state, breaking the Oath of Supremacy
in the process. Some were able to do this, but those who could not either resigned or withdrew from parish duties while continuing to provide pastoral care. There were calls for dis-establishment, but powerful church members resisted drastic change. In 1777, the legislature passed bills recognizing the church's right to its property and the right of the clergy to occupy the glebe
s. Clerical salaries were suspended and ended entirely in 1780. Thus for much of the war the Anglican Church faced an identity crisis. It was a state church controlled by a government refusing to fund it. The war also led to the breakdown of the vestry system as refugees strained parish resources and desperate vestrymen resigned or petitioned the state to dissolve their vestries.
and the separation of church and state
became dominant ideas, the Church of England was dis-established in Virginia. A few ministers were Loyalists and had returned to England. When it began organizing as a diocese after the Revolution about 50 Episcopal clergy were still active in the state. The A The lack of a steady means of pay and natural aging continued to reduce the number of clergy. Reforms at the College of William and Mary resulted in place for Episcopal clergy to study for ordination. The clergy shortage deepened over time. When possible, worship continued in the usual fashion, but the local vestry was no longer the unit of local government and no longer handled tax money. The Right Reverend James Madison
(1749–1812) (a cousin of politician James Madison
), was elected in 1790 as the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia and slowly rebuilt the denomination
After the war ended, Episcopalians (as Anglicans were now calling themselves) recognized the need to be in control of their own church. In April 1784, a meeting of Virginia ministers asked the legislature to relinquish control over the church and to issue an act of incorporation. In October, it passed an incorporation bill which placed the government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the hands of an annual convention with both lay and clerical representatives. However, the state continued to create new parishes and set parish boundaries, oversee vestry elections, and require county courts to review parish finances for several more years. For its part, the Episcopal Church continued to hold a monopoly on performing marriages.
The first convention was held May 1785. It elected a standing committee, elected deputies to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in September, and created canons
. The canons ensured that laity would participate in the trial of clergymen accused of misconduct and that bishops would have no authority except to oversee clerical conduct, perform confirmations and ordinations, and preside at the convention. At the second Virginia convention, in 1786, the Rev. Dr. David Griffith, who was both a surgeon and a priest, was elected to become the first Bishop of Virginia. He lacked the funds, however, to travel to England for his consecration, and in 1789, resigned his election, fell ill and died. The following year, James Madison
, the president of the College of William and Mary
, rector of James City parish, and cousin of the future president of the same name, was elected to become the first Bishop of Virginia, travelled to England and was consecrated.
In 1786, the Virginia Assembly passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
, written by Thomas Jefferson
and supported by James Madison
. It also repealed the act of incorporation for the Virginia church and took from the vestries the oversight of poor relief. Baptists and Presbyterians were proposing that all property of the colonial parishes—glebes, church buildings, church yards, communion silver, and Bibles—be sold for the benefit of all Virginians. Even with a 1788 law confirming the Episcopal Church's rights to the colonial church's property and the repeal of all laws creating an established church in 1799, efforts to disendow the Episcopal Church continued. In 1801, the General Assembly passed a law authorizing county overseers of the poor to sell property of the former established church, using the money for education and the poor. As late as 1814, the General Assembly was still authorizing the sale of specific parishes' silver and bells, and in 1841, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in a case involving the seizure of a parish glebe.
After the Episcopal Church lost a challenge to the 1801 law, Bishop Madison focused on keeping the College of William and Mary going. Congestive heart failure made it difficult for Madison to travel, and the diocese suffered decline that lasted until Madison's death. The next Bishop, Richard Channing Moore led the rebuilding of the diocese. The opening of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria in 1823 provided the diocese with the source of clergy it needed to rebuild. During the Civil War, West Virginia separated from Virginia and in 1877 that part of the Diocese of Virginia lying within the bounds of West Virginia became the Diocese of West Virginia
. In 1892, The southern part of the diocese became the Diocese of Southern Virginia
, and from that diocese, another emerged (the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
) in 1919. The boundaries of the Diocese of Virginia have remained unchanged since 1892.
as some conservative congregations withdrew from the diocese and the national Episcopal Church. Many of these congregations formed the Anglican District of Virginia
.
Diocese
A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America encompassing 38 counties in the northern and central parts of the state of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. The diocese was organized in 1785 and is one of the Episcopal Church's nine original dioceses. However, the diocese has origins in colonial Virginia. In 2009, the diocese had 79,852 members in 181 congregations and is thus the Episcopal Church's largest domestic diocese (the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti
Episcopal Diocese of Haiti
The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is the Anglican Communion diocese consisting of the entire territory of Haiti. It is part of Province 2 of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Its cathedral, Holy Trinity located in the corner of Ave. Mgr...
is larger).
The see
Episcopal See
An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
city is Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
where Mayo Memorial Church House, the diocesan offices, is located. The diocese does not have a conventional cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
church but rather an open-air cathedral, the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration (Shrine Mont), which was consecrated in 1925. Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, Virginia
Orkney Springs, Virginia
Orkney Springs is an unincorporated community in western Shenandoah County, Virginia. The use of the name 'Orkney' is unknown, but believed to be tied to either the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland or the Earl of Orkney. The 'Springs' comes from the numerous underground mineral springs in...
is also the site of a diocesan retreat and camp center. The diocese also operates the Virginia Diocesan Center at Roslyn in western Richmond, a conference center overlooking the James River. Virginia Theological Seminary
Virginia Theological Seminary
Virginia Theological Seminary , formally called the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, is the largest accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States. Founded in 1818, VTS is situated on an campus in Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from downtown Washington, DC. VTS...
, the largest accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States, is located within the diocese in Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
.
Church of England in Virginia
AnglicanismAnglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
came to Virginia in 1607 with the settlers who founded Jamestown
Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
. The charter of the London Company
London Company
The London Company was an English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.The territory granted to the London Company included the coast of North America from the 34th parallel ...
instructed them to adhere to the practices of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, and between 1607 and its dissolution in 1624, the company sent 22 ministers to the colony. These ministers were not only concerned for the spiritual lives of the colonists but also attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to convert the Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
. When Virginia's General Assembly
Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members,...
first met in 1619, it passed a series of laws concerning the church, including formally designating the Church of England as the established church of the colony. To keep pace with the colony's growth, the Burgesses
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America...
ordered each settlement to set aside a house or room as a place to hold regular worship services.
After Virginia was made a royal colony in 1624, it would face an acute and serious clergy shortage until the end of the 17th century. The shortage was fueled by an expanding population and insufficient clergy recruitment despite efforts to attract ministers by offering incentives, such as tax breaks. This forced parishes to rely on lay reader
Lay Reader
A lay reader is a layperson authorized by a bishop of the Anglican Church to read some parts of a service of worship. They are members of the congregation called to preach or lead services, but not called to full-time ministry.Anglican lay readers are licensed by the bishop to a particular parish...
s to lead prayers and read published sermons. The absence of North American bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s necessitated that colonists desiring ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
make the dangerous trip to and from England. It also meant children could not be confirmed, which meant (prior to 1662) that they could not receive communion
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
, although many clergymen overlooked this requirement.
In this vacuum, the legislature assumed some episcopal functions, such as outlining the responsibilities of clergymen and providing for their financial maintenance. It created a vestry
Vestry
A vestry is a room in or attached to a church or synagogue in which the vestments, vessels, records, etc., are kept , and in which the clergy and choir robe or don their vestments for divine service....
system in 1642-1643 that was lay
Laity
In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...
dominated, a radical departure from the English system where rectors were nominated by parish patrons and usually held office for life. In Virginia, vestries, usually consisting of 12 wealthy men, could appoint and remove ministers. Colonial parishes were units of local government and social welfare agencies. In addition to paying the minister's salary and building churches, the parish levy provided the vestry with funding for poor relief
Poor relief
Poor Relief refers to any actions taken by either governmental or ecclesiastical bodies to relieve poverty experienced by a population. More specifically, the term poor relief is often used to discuss how European countries dealt with poverty from the time just around the end of the medieval era to...
. Vestries were in charge of road maintenance, presented moral offenders to the county courts, and determined the legal bounds of an individual's land.
It was not until Henry Compton was appointed Bishop of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
that the hierarchy of the English Church would address the problems in America. Compton not only worked to improve the quality of the colony's ministers but appointed commissaries to act on his behalf. Commissaries could "summon the clergy, conduct visitations, administer oaths customary in ecclesiastical courts, and administer discipline or judicial proceedings to wayward clergy either by admonition, suspension, or excommunication" but could not ordain to the priesthood. The first commissary
Commissary
A commissary is someone delegated by a superior to execute a duty or an office; in a formal, legal context, one who has received power from a legitimate superior authority to pass judgment in a certain cause or to take information concerning it.-Word history:...
, Henry Clayton, arrived in 1684 but left two years later. His successor, James Blair, held the office for 54 years, from 1689 to his death in 1743. Blair was successful in establishing parishes in every county. He was also committed to educating colonial men for the ministry, establishing the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
in 1693. Compton's attention brought stability to Virginia's church and by 1703 nearly 80 percent of Virginia's 50 parishes had ministers.
Until the Great Awakening
First Great Awakening
The First Awakening was a Christian revitalization movement that swept Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal...
of the 1740s, the Church of England faced few challenges besides small groups of Quakers. During the Awakening, however, Presbyterians and Baptists emerged as a threat to the religious establishment. Baptists especially resented the privileged status of the Anglican Church and laws requiring dissenting
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
ministers to be licensed with the government. The Great Awakening also inspired an evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
movement within the established church, much of which would eventually be absorbed by Methodism
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
. By the 1750s and 1760s, however, the Church of England in Virginia was stable and prosperous.
Piety
In the 1740s, the Anglican church had about 70 parish priests around the colony. There was no bishop, and indeed, there was fierce political opposition to having a bishop in the colony. The Anglican priests were supervised directly by the distant Bishop of LondonBishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
, who paid little attention. Each county court gave tax money to the local vestry, composed of prominent layman. The vestry provided the priest a glebe
Glebe
Glebe Glebe Glebe (also known as Church furlong or parson's closes is an area of land within a manor and parish used to support a parish priest.-Medieval origins:...
of 200 or 300 acres (1.2 km²), a house, and perhaps some livestock. The vestry paid him an annual salary of 16000 lb (7,257.5 kg). of tobacco, plus 20 shillings for every wedding and funeral. While not poor, the priests lived modestly and their opportunities for improvement were slim.
Ministers reported that the colonists were typically inattentive, disinterested, and bored during church services, according to the ministers, who complained that the people were sleeping, whispering, ogling the fashionably dressed women, walking about and coming and going, or at best looking out the windows or staring blankly into space. The lack of towns means the church had to serve scattered settlements, while the acute shortage of trained ministers meant that piety was hard to practice outside the home. Some ministers solved their problems by encouraged parishioners to become devout at home, using the Book of Common Prayer for private prayer and devotion (rather than the Bible). This allowed devout Anglicans to lead an active and sincere religious life apart from the unsatisfactory formal church services. However the stress on private devotion weakened the need for a bishop or a large institutional church of the sort Blair wanted. The stress on personal piety opened the way for the First Great Awakening
First Great Awakening
The First Awakening was a Christian revitalization movement that swept Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal...
, which pulled people away from the established church.
Revolution
The American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
was a difficult time for the Anglican Church in America. Clergymen were divided between allegiance to their king
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
and their state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
. As public officials, ministers were required to swear loyalty to the state, breaking the Oath of Supremacy
Oath of Supremacy
The Oath of Supremacy, originally imposed by King Henry VIII of England through the Act of Supremacy 1534, but repealed by his daughter, Queen Mary I of England and reinstated under Mary's sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England under the Act of Supremacy 1559, provided for any person taking public or...
in the process. Some were able to do this, but those who could not either resigned or withdrew from parish duties while continuing to provide pastoral care. There were calls for dis-establishment, but powerful church members resisted drastic change. In 1777, the legislature passed bills recognizing the church's right to its property and the right of the clergy to occupy the glebe
Glebe
Glebe Glebe Glebe (also known as Church furlong or parson's closes is an area of land within a manor and parish used to support a parish priest.-Medieval origins:...
s. Clerical salaries were suspended and ended entirely in 1780. Thus for much of the war the Anglican Church faced an identity crisis. It was a state church controlled by a government refusing to fund it. The war also led to the breakdown of the vestry system as refugees strained parish resources and desperate vestrymen resigned or petitioned the state to dissolve their vestries.
Postwar Episcopalians
After the American Revolution, when freedom of religionFreedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
and the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
became dominant ideas, the Church of England was dis-established in Virginia. A few ministers were Loyalists and had returned to England. When it began organizing as a diocese after the Revolution about 50 Episcopal clergy were still active in the state. The A The lack of a steady means of pay and natural aging continued to reduce the number of clergy. Reforms at the College of William and Mary resulted in place for Episcopal clergy to study for ordination. The clergy shortage deepened over time. When possible, worship continued in the usual fashion, but the local vestry was no longer the unit of local government and no longer handled tax money. The Right Reverend James Madison
James Madison (Episcopal Bishop)
James Madison was the first bishop of the Diocese of Virginia of The Episcopal Church in the United States, one of the first bishops to be consecrated to the new church after the American Revolution...
(1749–1812) (a cousin of politician James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
), was elected in 1790 as the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia and slowly rebuilt the denomination
After the war ended, Episcopalians (as Anglicans were now calling themselves) recognized the need to be in control of their own church. In April 1784, a meeting of Virginia ministers asked the legislature to relinquish control over the church and to issue an act of incorporation. In October, it passed an incorporation bill which placed the government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the hands of an annual convention with both lay and clerical representatives. However, the state continued to create new parishes and set parish boundaries, oversee vestry elections, and require county courts to review parish finances for several more years. For its part, the Episcopal Church continued to hold a monopoly on performing marriages.
The first convention was held May 1785. It elected a standing committee, elected deputies to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in September, and created canons
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
. The canons ensured that laity would participate in the trial of clergymen accused of misconduct and that bishops would have no authority except to oversee clerical conduct, perform confirmations and ordinations, and preside at the convention. At the second Virginia convention, in 1786, the Rev. Dr. David Griffith, who was both a surgeon and a priest, was elected to become the first Bishop of Virginia. He lacked the funds, however, to travel to England for his consecration, and in 1789, resigned his election, fell ill and died. The following year, James Madison
James Madison (Episcopal Bishop)
James Madison was the first bishop of the Diocese of Virginia of The Episcopal Church in the United States, one of the first bishops to be consecrated to the new church after the American Revolution...
, the president of the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
, rector of James City parish, and cousin of the future president of the same name, was elected to become the first Bishop of Virginia, travelled to England and was consecrated.
In 1786, the Virginia Assembly passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law...
, written by Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and supported by James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
. It also repealed the act of incorporation for the Virginia church and took from the vestries the oversight of poor relief. Baptists and Presbyterians were proposing that all property of the colonial parishes—glebes, church buildings, church yards, communion silver, and Bibles—be sold for the benefit of all Virginians. Even with a 1788 law confirming the Episcopal Church's rights to the colonial church's property and the repeal of all laws creating an established church in 1799, efforts to disendow the Episcopal Church continued. In 1801, the General Assembly passed a law authorizing county overseers of the poor to sell property of the former established church, using the money for education and the poor. As late as 1814, the General Assembly was still authorizing the sale of specific parishes' silver and bells, and in 1841, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in a case involving the seizure of a parish glebe.
After the Episcopal Church lost a challenge to the 1801 law, Bishop Madison focused on keeping the College of William and Mary going. Congestive heart failure made it difficult for Madison to travel, and the diocese suffered decline that lasted until Madison's death. The next Bishop, Richard Channing Moore led the rebuilding of the diocese. The opening of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria in 1823 provided the diocese with the source of clergy it needed to rebuild. During the Civil War, West Virginia separated from Virginia and in 1877 that part of the Diocese of Virginia lying within the bounds of West Virginia became the Diocese of West Virginia
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
The Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America encompassing all 55 counties within the state of West Virginia...
. In 1892, The southern part of the diocese became the Diocese of Southern Virginia
Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia
-General information:Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America located in the southeast area of Virginia. It is in Province III...
, and from that diocese, another emerged (the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America located in the southwest area of Virginia. It is in Province III . The diocese includes 56 parishes in the southwestern corner of Virginia, including the cities of Lynchburg and...
) in 1919. The boundaries of the Diocese of Virginia have remained unchanged since 1892.
Recent history
In recent decades, the diocese has experienced the effects of Anglican realignmentAnglican realignment
The term Anglican realignment refers to a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada...
as some conservative congregations withdrew from the diocese and the national Episcopal Church. Many of these congregations formed the Anglican District of Virginia
Anglican District of Virginia
The Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic is a diocese within the Anglican Church in North America encompassing Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and northeastern North Carolina. The diocese was originally organized in 2006 as the Anglican District of Virginia when a group of Virginian congregations...
.
Bishops
These are the bishops who have served the Diocese of Virginia:- James MadisonJames Madison (Episcopal Bishop)James Madison was the first bishop of the Diocese of Virginia of The Episcopal Church in the United States, one of the first bishops to be consecrated to the new church after the American Revolution...
(1790–1812) - Richard Channing MooreRichard Channing MooreThe Right Reverend Richard Channing Moore was the second bishop of the Diocese of Virginia .-Life and career:...
(1814–1841)
*William MeadeWilliam MeadeWilliam Meade , was a United States Episcopal bishop.The son of Richard Kidder Meade , one of George Washington's aides during the War of Independence, he was born near Millwood, in what is now Clarke County, Virginia. He graduated as valedictorian in 1808 at the college of New Jersey ; studied...
, Assistant (1829–1841) - William MeadeWilliam MeadeWilliam Meade , was a United States Episcopal bishop.The son of Richard Kidder Meade , one of George Washington's aides during the War of Independence, he was born near Millwood, in what is now Clarke County, Virginia. He graduated as valedictorian in 1808 at the college of New Jersey ; studied...
(1841–1862)
*John JohnsJohn JohnsJohn Johns was the fourth Episcopal bishop of Virginia.-Early life and education:Born into a prominent political family in New Castle, Delaware, John Johns was born in 1796. He was the son of Chief Justice Kensey Johns III, and grandson of Governor Nicholas Van Dyke of Delaware.In 1815, Johns...
, Assistant (1842–1862) - John JohnsJohn JohnsJohn Johns was the fourth Episcopal bishop of Virginia.-Early life and education:Born into a prominent political family in New Castle, Delaware, John Johns was born in 1796. He was the son of Chief Justice Kensey Johns III, and grandson of Governor Nicholas Van Dyke of Delaware.In 1815, Johns...
(1862–1876)
*Francis McNeece Whittle, Assistant (1867–1876) - Francis McNeece Whittle (1876–1902)
*Alfred Magill Randolph, Assistant (1883–1892); named bishop of Southern VirginiaEpiscopal Diocese of Southern Virginia-General information:Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America located in the southeast area of Virginia. It is in Province III...
*John Brockenbrough Newton, Assistant/Coadjutor (1894–1897)
*Robert Atkinson Gibson, Coadjutor (1897–1902) - Robert Atkinson Gibson (1902–1919)
*Arthur Selden Lloyd, Coadjutor, (1909 - 1911?)
*William Cabell Brown, Coadjutor (1914–1919) - William Cabell Brown (1919–1927)
*Henry St. George TuckerHenry St. George Tucker (bishop)Henry St. George Tucker , the 19th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was an Episcopal priest and bishop. His parents were Beverley Dandridge Tucker and Anna Maria Washington and is descended from St. George Tucker of Williamsburg. In the earlier part of his career, he went as a...
, Coadjutor (1926–1927) - Henry St. George TuckerHenry St. George Tucker (bishop)Henry St. George Tucker , the 19th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was an Episcopal priest and bishop. His parents were Beverley Dandridge Tucker and Anna Maria Washington and is descended from St. George Tucker of Williamsburg. In the earlier part of his career, he went as a...
(1927–1943), elected presiding bishop in 1938
*Frederick Deane Goodwin, Coadjutor (1930–1944) - Frederick Deane Goodwin (1944–1960)
*Wiley Roy Mason, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1942–1951), assistant (1951–1968)
*Robert Fisher Gibson, Jr., suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1949–1954), Coadjutor (1954–1960)
*Samuel Blackwell Chilton, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1960–1969) - Robert Fisher Gibson, Jr. (1961–1974)
*Robert Bruce Hall, Coadjutor (1966–1974)
*Philip Alan Smith, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1970–1972), elected bishop coadjutor of New HampshireEpiscopal Diocese of New HampshireThe Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America , covers the entire state of New Hampshire. It was originally part of the Diocese of Massachusetts, but became independent in 1841. The see city is Concord...
*John Alfred Baden, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1973–1979) - Robert Bruce Hall (1974–1985)
*David Henry Lewis, Jr., suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1980–1987)
*Peter James Lee, Coadjutor (1984–1985) - Peter James Lee (1985–2009)
*Robert Poland Atkinson, Assistant (1989–1993)
*F. Clayton Matthews, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1994–1998), named director of the Office of Pastoral Development
*David Colin Jones, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1995 - )
*Francis Campbell Gray, Assistant (1999–2007)
*Shannon Sherwood Johnston, Coadjutor (2007–2009) - Shannon Sherwood Johnston (2009 - )
*David Colin Jones, suffraganSuffragan bishopA suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
(1995 - )